The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Yes folks, tonight’s color is Gold

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Stout Cortez would have loved this.

So, if you look East away from the sunset, the sky looks like this.

Blue, blue

Joni Mitchell, I hope you are OK.

I like the longer evening. Now in Okinawa, the sun goes down at about 7:15. This means I can leave work at a less than embarrassing time and still get in an evening sail. It is not the glorious long evening of the West Highland summer but, er it is warm.

This is what I done did tonight. So, I mean, what can I say?  Is anything better?

Perfect breeze

Notice light in the western sky

I make a decision

That will do Pig

It really is a beautiful evening and er warm

As the sun hits the horizon, I pick up the mooring with the greatest of ease.

I like it here

Anyway, yesterday as I was stumbling around, I tripped over a very large crab. It is a bit smaller than a tennis ball.

In a red bucket

I tried to talk about sponge cake but it was not engaged.

So I have given up on my  Brugmansia. The first year they were fantastic but they have been going downhill ever since. This year there were only 3 flowers and they are infested with mealy bugs.

I rip them out and clean out all the old root structure from the soil. I have realized also that my secret garden is not a good place to grow stuff – not enough sun. Only Impatiens really flourish. I have moved all my plants out to the road side of the house where there is lots of sun.

Mud cake

I replant the pots with Plumeria for which I have high hopes.

Coming on

As  I am fiddling around outside, my neighbor from across the road, of whom I see little, sidles over. I am worried as I have concluded that he does not like me.  He keeps calling the police when I have parties. Now he is all smiles and I understand he is having a yagi party and wants me to come. Luckily, yagi is one of the 27 Japanese words I know. It means goat.

I wander over later and hit hardcore Okinawa. All the men are squatting on mats under a canopy in the garden. The women are inside the house. There are two huge cauldrons simmering over gas rings  outside the house. One is full of Yagi soup and the other is I think more mundane beef.

Eat goat

The soup contains goat, liver and tripe. I am given a bag of what looks like chrysthanthemum foliage,  which I think I should add to the soup. Anyway, this is what I do.

The whole deal. Check the  chrysthanthemun

Apparently goat soup enhances virility. This I know because the old guy beside me points at the bowl, grabs my genitals and raises his fore arm in an unmistakeable gesture.

No one speaks a word of English. I pantomime and we all have a jolly good time. The guys are hitting the awamori in a systematic, determined way. They know where they are going.

As you know, I don’t like sponge cake. The delightful folks as what I work with, take this to heart and  present me with the best birthday cake.

Thanks Naoko and Mino san

It is a beautifully cooked and decorated Spanish omelet, still hot as it is brought in to the room.

I try to blow out the candles

My wish is that I can always work with such kind, gracious people.

I do not know if they still need me but they certainly still feed me – now I’m 64.

Tomorrow I will be 64 – will you still feed me? etc.  Next week is a series of Board meetings and dinners and I doubt that I will be writing much. Today I have the best fun in the Scaffie. Great weather, fine wind.

This last night

This, this morning

I stepped on an oar and busted it. I put on  a new blade before setting off. You do not want be oarless in Onna.

Huge grasshopper. It is interesting how many insects are damaged. This one only has one feeler thing

Getting ready to cast off from mooring.

A speed boat tries to keep up

How many more years?

I have to go to the university to welcome people but rush back just in time for a sunset shot.

Pretty damn good. Note how quickly the sun is moving away from Zampa

Bye bye 63.

Sunset tonight. I sit out on the beach.

It has been a cloudy, generally unremarkable day. 6:15

I sit and wait and watch and listen.

Whoa 7:10

What shall I eat tonight?

Dudes fish

Although sunsets are the ultimate cliche of photography, I do not care. I look forward to a period of the Okinawan year during which each evening is an exhilarating sunset adventure.

Okinawan pineapple. You can untimely rip each segment out by hand

How I spend my time. Regrettably I cannot read music.

As I live on the western shore of Okinawa, every night when I return from my place of work, I stare out. The sun always goes down, but in a glorious period this happens in full view of my deck. That period is now.

I saw summer sunsets  and hoped for more

I am afraid this blog is going to become rather, which in any language other than middle class English means very, boring. I hope to record the setting of the sun in a kinda obsessive, boring, way over the next few weeks. This is important to me as I have a very clear indicator of the seasons’ passage and hence the onward march of time, right at my backdoor. The more the sunset moves away from Cape Zampa the more we move towards Summer and glee. Suddenly in the midst of glee, the sun starts moving back again and Autumn stirs the pot.

Anyway, tonight is a big deal for, for the first time this year, the sun slams into the sea noticeably beyond Cape Zampa.

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot

So I wander down to the beach and sit and watch the sun going down. It is amazing. So many changes in hue in such a short time.

Under the bridge

So, at this time of year the forest of Okinawa erupts. Trees that had previously generally blended into the Jurassic Park vegetation that surrounds the university are sudden covered in beautiful creamy-white blossom. Blossom? Not sure that this is this best word, as for me, blossom frets and struts its life out over a short time. Iju  flowers? hang in for weeks. Anyway I love it and now pant in expectation  each year. The flowers herald in the rainy season and then the Summer.

Check it: http://www.tabata-tumugi.co.jp/fuubutu-e/backno/fuu0806-e.htm

This year the displays are particularly spectacular. Learned Tomomi informs me that this augurs a bad typhoon season. Hooray!

Typhoon

Conrad

Mt Kurz, he dead

I have 5 Mac keyboards. 4 wireless ones and one a with a snake-ish usb connection.  None of them work. I interpret this breakdown as a result of the heat and humility of the Okinawan climate. Aghast, as I cannot use my computer and so am dead, I consult the Oracle as to how I can get a wireless mac keyboard. I dread an endless excursion, trying to find a highly lighted, very loud, frenetic, store where nobody understands my mime for wireless mac keyboard. The  Japanese Oracle says “Yo, dude hit up Amazon .jp.”

Humility

So, here I have to wonder. I have lived in Japan for 5.5 years. The idea of going to a web site to order stuff, I mean any stuff, in English was impossible when I first debarked. It took me 4 years to get a Japanese credit card. I assumed this was normal. Maybe not? Maybe  this was here from the beginning but I was too happy to fall into the quaint belief of everything has to be paid for with cash in Japan  that I had created for myself.

Amazon .jp english allows you to buy anything, I mean anything, on line.

Is this a recent thing or has it been here all the time but my stupid misinterpretation of life in Japan has disguised it from me?

Two days after I hit the web site

I mean what I am trying to say is that living in a foreign country opens a vast vista of opportunity for misinterpretation.  You,or at least I, never really completely understand what is going on. This is why I get angry when people talk about countries they have never lived in. They really have not got a clue.  I think it is linked to the era of imperialistic, colonialist self belief that I grew up in. Friends, only talk about your own country. Otherwise you are making fools of yourselves.

Yay!  New keyboard, lens cap, futon cover and camera bag.

Aregato Gozaimasu Amazon.jp

So this is for me. Just a series of photos that record how I spent 8 May 2016. I will look at it in the future in some cold, dank room and the treasure I have anchored to my soul will cure me, if you know what I mean.

Up she rises er early in the morning

I love my new thwart

Tide goes out. So blue

The tide is very low, which makes for good snorkeling. This is what the lagoon looks under the water.

I am in 3 feet of water

warm

silver

yep

What is going on here?

Family of clown fish in 50 cms of water

Too soon it is time to watch the sunset.

Turner

A Pacific Rim Egret watches with me

Work tomorrow

Thank you Okinawa